Re: furnace fireman

I too have experience with stoker operations. I worked for an old fashioned hardware store in Colorado. They had a stoker fired furnace in the basement. The hopper would only hold about 200 lbs. During the sub-zero winter nights, I would have to drive back down to the store to lold the hopper at 11:00 P.M. If I didn't , the fire would burn out in the middle of the night. Even then , some mornings the fire would be just coals and the bin would be empty. I got pretty good at bringing a fire back from nothing ! The coal storage bin for the store would hold 60 tons of good Yampa Valley coal. At the end of the season, the bin might only have couple of hundred pounds left. The last year I worked there the coal left would just fill a wheel barrow up. I count myself as a fireman of sorts too.

Charles